White Noise
by wisteria
Summary: Skittering through mind-trips in the moments between a choice and an antidote. (post-Normal Again)


_DISCLAIMER: The characters herein are the property of Mutant Enemy and all related entities.  
TIMEFRAME: Just after "Normal Again"  
RATING: PG-13 for language  
ARCHIVAL: My site only. Please feel free to link to it at www.alanna.net/btvs/whitenoise.htm _

_SUMMARY: Skittering through mind-trips in the moments between a choice and an antidote._

_Feedback is the best kind of noise - wisteria@smyrnacable.net_

**WHITE NOISE  
by wisteria**

_____________________

  
"I've done it, love."

She looks up at him, expecting to see a gloat on his face to match the one in his voice. But he just stares at her from the doorway of her bedroom. Passive and waiting.

"Done what?" she asks.

He shifts on his feet. "Told your friends about us. You and me. The sex, all of it." 

Oh. Oh, God. The bed starts to swallow her.

Then Spike's right there, perched on the side of her bed. One arm wrapped around her shoulders, the other hand cupping her chin. "No, s'okay, Buffy. They're okay. Not gonna throw us a parade or anything, but it's good."

She can't believe him. No. It's just one of his plans to cut down her defenses. But now Willow's walking into the room, and she's smiling at the two of them. Xander's right behind her, no smile on his face, but no real anger either. Dawn comes in too, lurking in the doorway, moody but giving off support vibes.

And Willow says, "At least two of us should be happy, right?"

Buffy looks around at her nearest and dearest. Her body feels light, as if she's floating. Spike pulls her close and drops a kiss on the top of her head. 

He was right. She's happier now.

She closes her eyes as the smile spreads across her face and down her body, all the way to her toes. She takes Spike's hand in hers, tracing the back of his hand with her thumb, and she reaches out for Dawn with her other hand. 

It's all good. Life is good.

She opens her eyes, the smile still on her face.

And she sees Xander looking at her from the doorway, his body nearly thrumming with anger. 

Willow's just behind him, a familiar worry-crease on her brow.

Spike's not holding her. She can't see him anywhere. A chill slithers down her spine.

"How could you, Buffy?" Willow whispers in a sandpaper voice. "How the hell could you screw that - that thing? Didn't you learn your lesson the last time?"

Buffy's head recoils as if Willow has slapped her from ten feet away.

No! No.

Her gaze flickers back over to Xander, who is looking at her with such disappointment in his eyes. 

The shame it weighs on her chest, burrows down in her bones.

And his voice is a dagger as he says, "I thought you were better than that."

_____________________

  
"I've done it, love."

The second she hears his voice, she screws up her face tight to keep from seeing him. 

But then she smells it, feels it. No, it can't be.

No.

When she opens her eyes, Spike's standing in the doorway. There's a long red gash down his cheek. One sleeve of his coat is torn to shreds.

His hands are covered in blood.

No.

"They're not dead, are they? You didn't - you didn't kill them?" The words scrape her larynx. 

Spike laughs. It's a harsh laugh, a gurgling one. When she looks back up at his mouth, she sees his bloody smile. His incisors are dull, but they're liquid red.

He takes a swaggering step toward her. "Your wanker friends? Not worth the effort of killing." He's grinning now, and she can smell the blood on his breath. 

"No, got fed up with it, you see. Bloody bint at the Stop 'n Shop had the balls to try and call the cops on me when she caught me nicking some cigs. Taught her a lesson, I did."

Her body curls into itself. She can't believe she's asking, "But the chip?"

"Didn't work on her, pet." Now his laugh his cackling and cold. "Guess you didn't come back wrong, after all."

He's beside her bed now, and she stares up at him with horror as she skitters across to the edge of the other side. Away, away from him.

Spike coos, "I brought you a present, Buffy. A trophy, if you will." 

He holds out a clenched fist, something obviously inside it. 

No!

Buffy furiously scrubs her face with her hands, willing it to go away, far away.

The bed shifts with his weight, and suddenly he's holding her close again, whispering in her ear.

"You all right, love? C'mon, it's okay," he murmurs. 

His breath doesn't smell like blood. 

"What-" she begins to say, but the words won't come.

Spike places his hand on her knee, and she flinches. But he keeps rubbing it, and when she looks down, his hand is sparkly-clean. No blood.

"The shopgirl the 'bint'?"

"Since when have you used that word, pet? I must be rubbing off on you." His voice is like sunshine, which is odd but oddly familiar.

Buffy takes a deep breath, summoning all her strength to fight him off.

But when she looks up at him, he's staring down at her with that tender expression she knows so well. Too well.

"It's all right, Slayer," he whispers. "You're tripping, nightmarin', whatever. It's not real."

No, it was. She still remembers the blood. 

Yet he's crystal-clean and holding her now, and she doesn't know what the hell is reality anymore. 

He slips one arm between her back and the pillow, and she feels something cold on the nape of her neck. It's nubby and icy. 

She has a psychic memory of this - of him holding a compress of ice and washcloth against her neck after they made love. They'd been at it for hours, and even as her body craved more and more, her muscles refused to cooperate and she collapsed beside him on his bed. He'd slipped away and returned a few minutes later with the icepack.

"God, it hurts me to see you like this, Buffy. But Spike's gonna to make it all better, okay?" His palm brushes a path up and down her arm. 

"Gonna make it all better." 

She can't smell any blood. She only smells him.

_____________________

  
"I've done it, love."

"What?" His voice is lighter than she's heard in ages, and she thinks she likes it.

He holds out a hand to her. "Come with me."

She leans over to put the mug on the bedside table, then she struggles to stand on wobbly legs. Been huddled on this bed so long that her muscles feel atrophied, and her hand still wants to curl around that coffee mug.

When she reaches the foot of the stairs, Dawn's sitting on the sofa. Her hair's pulled back in an elastic, and her face is scrubbed clean. She looks innocent again, worlds away from the tiresome adolescent angst of late. 

"Spike told me about everything," Dawn begins.

Buffy looks up at him. He's leaning against the wall, arms crossed and head tilted to the side, looking very sage-like. He nods at Dawn, a signal to continue.

Her voice calm and clear, Dawn says, "I know all about this thing you two have going, and it's weird, but I guess it's a good kind of weird, y'know? At least everything makes sense, what with the way you've been all whacked out lately."

Buffy doesn't know how to respond, so she just says, "Thanks, I think."

"And I've decided I'm going to forgive you for all of it. It wasn't your fault that you totally ignored me and acted like I was a pain in your ass and even tried to kill me last night. Because you're just dealing with stuff, and I need to be more understanding."

This is odd, very odd. Buffy stares at her sister, who doesn't look upset or sarcastic. Dawn's just smiling up at her like the whole world is right again. 

Spike walks over to Buffy and gives her a nudge. It must be her cue, because she walks over to Dawn and gives her a big hug. 

Everything does feel weird, but it also feels right again.

She smiles into her sister's shoulder.

Then everything shifts around her, like pudding. Her arms are empty now.

Buffy spins around, wondering what the hell is going on. 

And then she sees Dawn, glaring at her with accusing eyes and a bleeding gash on her face. 

Willow, Tara and Xander are on either side of her, their shoulders squared and eyes narrowed. 

"Wha-" Buffy begins, but the words die in her throat.

Tara - her confidante, the woman she has started to consider a true friend - practically spits at her. "You tried to kill us, Buffy."

Eyes wide and mouth open, Buffy just stares. Her body wants to curl back within itself.

Xander takes a step forward, looming over her, larger-than-life.

"Do you really hate us that much, Buffy? You actually wanted to kill us so you could get us out of your twisted little head?"

She takes a step back, her flinch vibrating her bones. But Xander's still there, even closer now. 

"Spike - " she chokes out. Where is he? He'll fix it. He'll understand her, support her. Tell the others it was all just craziness. It wasn't real. But then, it was. She knows this. She wishes she didn't.

Willow practically cackles as she holds out a paper bag. "We took care of that little sickness of yours. Really, Buffy - was your life so bad that you had to do that? Too bad you kicked him out when he was here earlier. You would've dusted him just like you were going to let us die."

She tosses the bag to the floor. "Now you can roll around in his dust, like the dirt your life has become."

No! Noooooo..

She turns around and runs away, but her legs are still too weak. 

She stumbles and falls face-first onto the hallway rug, then suddenly there are four pairs of hands grabbing her, pulling her back upright.

"It's what you deserve, Buffy," someone growls in her ear. "It's what you need."

_____________________

  
"I've done it, love."

She opens her sleepy eyes when the bed shifts under her, and there Spike is, pulling her close. 

He continues, "I went down to the basement and got another of that demon's stingers. Willow's mixing up another batch of that gooey antidote for you. You'll be right as rain before long."

"Thanks," she whispers. And it's good, it's all good. She's chosen life. She leans into him again, feeling the way his body fits hers.

Safe. He feels so safe. He's a vampire and a killer and everything she's supposed to hate, but she feels safe right now.

He drops a kiss on her temple, and he murmurs, "Just relax, Buffy. It'll all be over soon."

As her head lolls to the side, she feels his lips on the curve of her neck, and she flinches.

"No," he says with a soothing voice. "Not gonna do anything bad. Just want to kiss you."

She lets herself melt just a little bit. 

"Here you go, Buffy," Willow's voice calls out from the hallway. Then she enters, and Buffy sees her stop short in the doorway.

"Oh," Willow says. "Oh."

Buffy closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, then she says, "It's okay, Willow. I should've told you ages ago." Another breath, and, "Spike and I - we're lovers."

She feels him move next to her, almost as if he's the one who's relaxing. 

Willow gapes just a little bit, and Buffy holds her gaze. Just let her friends try to negate this. She can take it. 

But then Willow says, "Okay." She pauses, then adds, "Um, is it okay? I mean, I'm not sure it is, but if you say it's okay then I'll deal with it."

Buffy doesn't have to look up at her lover; she can feel his relief in the set of his chin where it rests against her shoulder. She replies, "Yeah. It's okay."

Willow gives her trademark uncertain smile as she walks over to the side of the bed. "Does he make you happy, Buffy?"

There's a curious note in her voice, as if Buffy's answer holds the weight of the world. 

Buffy thinks about how she treated him when they were sleeping together - how she used and abused him, acting as if he was less than dirt. 

Then she remembers the way he took everything she dealt to him, all the harsh words and frustrated insecurities, never failing to love her and accept her for what she was, or wasn't. 

And she remembers one afternoon, a few days before she broke up with him. She'd just gotten off an afternoon shift at the DMP, and she stopped by his place on the way home. Dawn wasn't due back from school for another hour, and Buffy needed to feel something better than the spirit-suck of her job.

Spike had held her close in his bed. Didn't ask anything of her, except for her to tell him how her day went. She'd lay there with him, still clothed and on top of the covers, just talking. And as she let it all out of her system, she'd realized that she felt content.

"Yeah." She looks up at Willow. "In some weird way that I still can't understand, he makes me happy."

Willow's earlier uncertainty shifts into a no-nonsense nod. "That's good, then. I can deal."

And Spike holds her close again, but this time it's in her bed.

Yeah, she can be happy with him.

The mug is suddenly in front of her face, and Willow says, "Here you go. Down the hatch."

Buffy takes it and stares down into its murky depths. 

She thinks about everything that it means. 

No more asylum. No more of the peace and numbing warmth it provided. No more Mom and Dad, smiling at her and coaxing her to get better.

Then she looks up, away from the cup's blackness. She sees light all around her. It's ambient light because Spike's here, but the world is still clear again for the first time in ages. Willow's with her, that same half-smile on her face, and Spike's holding her close. Xander and Dawn aren't here, but she can sense them nearby.

It's a harsher world, a darker one. It's cold, and she'll have to make do without drugs or insanity to numb her. 

But now she thinks she can do it.

"Thank you," she whispers to the two people who are here, and the two who are not.

She lifts the cup and drinks.

_____________________

_END (1/1)_

_wisteria@smyrnacable.net_

_Huge thanks to everyone who saw this before I posted it, and especially to Ophelia, for everything._

_  
_


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